School Diners

I created School Diners to inspire students who were the same as I was; uninterested, disillusioned and feeling a bit lost. We focus on the positive side of life, also Entrepreneurial lifeskills including Leadership, Organisation, Resilience, Initiative, Communication and so much more. It doesn't feel like school but they are learning massively important skills about wellbeing, mindfulness, nutrition and stress management.

How School Diners works…

1 I come and visit the students to introduce myself, tell them a little about me, how I grew up in the care system and foster homes and how that has moulded my life, how I have used that to enable me to be who I am now. But mostly I am there to find out more about them. I then introduce the School Diners project; open a restaurant in their school in 6 weeks.

2 Together we will create a business, designing and opening a pop up restaurant for one night in their school canteen. They will invite 80-100 guests, for a three course meal.The students will learn how to contact guests, advertise, design the room, work out the costs etc. There will also be a series of videos from myself to guide them throughout the process, they are designed to be used as practical conversation starters, to get the creativity flowing.

3 On the day, the students will prepare, cook and serve all of the food to our guests, in return the guests will only pay what they truly believe the food and service quality was worth. The students will then be given the opportunity to decide how best to use their profit. Its a full on day, peeling, chopping and cooking, followed up by serving and washing up, but the rewards are great too.

Some feedback….

Without giving too much away, Mark is one of very few people who can speak to a group of students and truly claim that not one of them has been through anything like the turmoil he has suffered. He is an inspirational speaker and a motivator who will be able to connect with even the hardest to reach students. I couldn’t recommend him highly enough and can’t wait to work with him on further projects.Chris Edwards, Head Teacher, Brighton Hill Community School

Leaders have been creative in their design of activities to re-engage pupils and develop their sense of belonging, including a “Bread Baking Weekend” and “Bush Craft Survival”. Consequently, overall attendance has steadily improved year on year and vulnerable pupils are attending school more regularly.OFSTED report 2017

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Organisations I have worked with…

Working with international organisations like PiXL gives me a great sense of achievement, more importantly building ongoing relationships directly with schools, teachers and students is the most satisfying part of School Diners. Below are schools and organisations that are participating, check them out.